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What you haven't mentioned, Rebecca, is that some of Word's features can't
be cured with macros, such as header/footer fields that don't update or lock
up the system, or a spellchecker that refuses to function automatically, or
styles that spontaneously change attributes. You also seem to assume that
you're dealing with either a small, tightly-knit company, or a single
department, rather than a far-flung enterprise with rapid turnover. Many of
us receive documents from other places, or have to edit them. Many of us
aren't given copious amounts of time to master the software and write
corrective macros. As for macros, consider that many of the commands don't
work as advertised, either. If you read Woody Leonhard's now-outdated
"Hacker's Guide", you'll find it peppered with bug graphics, indicators that
the marked command has severe problems. VBA isn't light-years better.
I recently completed a small project for a client who uses Word extensively.
I designed and built a tight little template for the one piece I was doing,
just to show that it could be done. Client employees were impressed, but
promptly went back to using Word without the template. Templates can lose
attributes, and most people don't know or don't care how to apply them. They
must be distributed to each machine, or run the risk of having a network
snafu undo the use of a networked one. And on this job, I ran into yet
another bug...one file spontaneously sets the printer to "manual feed" when
it went to the printer. It happened in my office, and it happened at the
client site. Yet another printer at the client site proved not to have the
problem.
I think what enrages so many people is that Microsoft isn't honest about its
product, and doesn't actually care about the large-document producers.
Word's master document feature hasn't worked in ages, through at least three
versions of the software, and even Word's most passionate gurus won't defend
it or use it. The workaround of using fields is slow and cumbersome. Yet,
many organizations force us to use a tool that is demonstrably inefficient,
clumsy, bug-ridden, and in some cases catastrophic. If the same learning
curve needed to master Word's macros and other workarounds were applied to
learning FrameMaker, the results would be far more reliable and satisfying.
Tim Altom
Simply Written, Inc.
Featuring FrameMaker and the Clustar(TM) System
"Better communication is a service to mankind."
317.562.9298
Check our Web site for the upcoming Clustar class info http://www.simplywritten.com
>
> Okay, I've had it. Word isn't the best tool for long documents, but it's
not
> the evil entity everyone's making it out to me. I work for a writing
> contractor who has been using Word for 10 years, and despite it's
problems,
> it has some major advantages, primarily its macro language and that it
> doesn't cost an arm and a leg for freelancers and clients to purchase.
